The approaches described in this section are approaches that could be pursued, but not necessarily approaches that have been previously conceived or pursued. Therefore, unless otherwise indicated, it should not be assumed that any of the approaches described in this section qualify as prior art merely by virtue of their inclusion in this section.
Business organization and people employed by business organizations often are involved in buying and selling activities. People and organizations who are involved in buying activities may be called “buying entities,” and people and organizations who are involved in selling activities may be called “selling entities.”
All too often, buying entities are bombarded by large amounts of undesired solicitations from selling entities. These solicitations typically comprise advertisements for selling entities' products and/or services. Solicitations may come through a variety of avenues of communication. A selling entity might call a buying entity on the telephone to solicit the buying entity's business. Alternatively or additionally, a selling entity might send an e-mail message to a buying entity's e-mail address to solicit the buying entity's business.
When a selling entity calls a buying entity on the telephone, the buying entity may view the call as a harassment or annoyance. Answering the telephone and communicating with the selling entity often requires the buying entity to interrupt other important tasks. At a minimum, communicating with the selling entity uses some of the buying entity's precious time. If the buying entity is not interested in the solicitation, then the buying entity is faced with the difficult task of terminating the telephone call as quickly as possible. Doing this in a polite manner can be difficult, especially when the selling entity is insistent. Faced with this task too often, a buying entity may become frustrated and angry, and vent these emotions on later-calling selling entities. Such emotional exchanges are not pleasant for either buying entities or selling entities, and are hardly conducive to business.
Similarly, when a selling entity sends an e-mail message to a buying entity, the buying entity may view the e-mail as a harassment or annoyance. A buying entity's e-mail inbox may become congested with “spam” e-mail messages. Separating interesting e-mail messages from spam e-mail messages can be a time-consuming process. A buying entity may have difficulty distinguishing, quickly, between interesting e-mail messages and spam e-mail messages. When a buying entity responds to a selling entity's e-mail message in an effort to cause the selling entity to desist, the response identifies the buying entity to the selling entity. The selling entity often takes the response as verification that the buying entity's e-mail address is valid and active. The selling entity might even compile a list of verified buying entities' e-mail addresses and sell the list to other selling entities. As a result, buying entities that ask selling entities to stop sending e-mailed solicitations may receive an even greater volume of e-mailed solicitations.
One approach to dealing with unwanted telephone calls is to stop answering telephone calls that originate from unknown telephone numbers. Callers' telephone numbers can be detected and displayed by caller identification devices. Similarly, one approach to dealing with unwanted e-mail is to delete, automatically, all e-mail messages that do not originate from known and trusted e-mail addresses. Unfortunately, these approaches can be over-inclusive. There may be some solicitations, even from unknown selling entities, in which a buying entity would be interested.
On the other hand, selling entities are constantly faced with the challenge of directing solicitations to buying entities that are interested in the selling entities' products and/or services. A selling entity might send solicitations in massive amounts to a multitude of different buying entities in hopes that at least a few of those buying entities will be interested. However, this approach tends to alienate uninterested buying entities. Many times, the temporal and monetary cost of contacting interested buying entities outweighs the value of the contacts made. Given many buying entities' reluctance to have any contact with any unknown selling entities, a selling entity may be blocked from contacting even those buying entities that probably would be interested in the selling entity's products and/or services.
Selling entities usually are in competition with other selling entities. When multiple selling entities solicit the same buying entity, each of the selling entities may have difficulty distinguishing itself, to the buying entity, from the other selling entities. Likewise, the buying entity might not have a sufficient informational basis for selecting one selling entity over another, especially if the buying entity is unfamiliar with any of the selling entities. A buying entity may not know whom to trust.
As is discussed above, prospective buying entities are often bombarded by solicitations from selling entities. These solicitations may take the form of radio, television, printed, or computer-displayed advertisements, for example. In such advertisements, selling entities often make incredible claims about their products and/or services in order to entice prospective buying entities into purchasing those products and/or services. Unfortunately, because these advertisements are produced by the selling entities or their agents, the claims made in these advertisements are often biased, exaggerated, or misleading. All too often, testimonials presented within such advertisements are purchased and insincere. Competing selling entities sometimes even denigrate their competitors in their advertisements. Advertisements usually do not tell the whole story about the selling entities whose products and/or services the advertisements promote.
Consequently, in such advertisements, there is usually little or no valuable information that a prospective buying entity can use to make an informed decision about whether to purchase the products and/or services promoted within those advertisements. Based on the foregoing, a technique or system for allowing prospective buying entities to obtain reliable and trustworthy information about selling entities' business practices and reputations would be highly desirable.